


Phase Interference (With You Looking On)

by revel_ry



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, and the immediate aftermath, brief depictions of sexual assault, musician au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:14:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29252775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revel_ry/pseuds/revel_ry
Summary: He turns with the cable clutched in his hand just as the voice peeks its head into the doorway of the booth.“I can help.”You.A lump fills Yuuji’s throat. He counts the beats he finds himself staring.It’s you. Aoi.He didn’t even know Aoi was part of the music program. He didn’t know if Aoi ever came back to school after that night. He didn’t know the outcome, if Aoi was okay. Their campus is big; his schedule is strict. He had never seen Aoi before and didn’t see him again. After he left the room, everything went radio silent.Do you…recognize me?//Months ago, Yuuji found a boy in trouble. This is the first time he's seen him since then.
Relationships: Terushima Yuuji/Himekawa Aoi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Phase Interference (With You Looking On)

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the platform's first ever TeruAoi fic! Please enjoy my favorite rarepair!
> 
> This one's for you, Emma.

“Just cheat for me,” Kuroo says, hoisting his bass bag into his hand as he steps out from the sound booth.

Yuuji snorts. “Yeah, good luck. We both want an A in this. Our professors are gonna get the raw too, anyway.” He tugs his headphones back up from his neck, keeping one muff away from his ear. “I hear you’ve got a second date with that guy from the software development department.”

“ _Game_ development,” Kuroo emphasizes. “And it’s a third date.”

“Wow, you’re really getting somewhere this time.”

“A lot further than you. You’re still stuck at T-equals-zero.” He props his bass against the soundboard. “Gotta be _some_ person in the crowd you could pick out after a show. You’re not exactly discriminate.”

“Easy for you to say, one-ninety.”

Kuroo laughs. “Spare me, tongue bar.” He leans down next to Yuuji to look into the monitors, flattening a hand on the mixer.

Yuuji eyes it sideways. “Get your fingers off that thing unless you want me to ruin your sound.” He dusts Kuroo’s hand away. “You want full color, right?”

“The fattest sound you can give me,” Kuroo purrs. “Nice and thick.”

Yuuji shakes his head. Kuroo has been a heartthrob since they met in uni first year. They sat a seat away from each other, one pretty girl in between, and both turned to her for a _with the person next to you_ in-class assignment. Friends by the end of the week, bandmates by the end of the month once they gathered Bokuto and Daishou from kinesiology and vet med. Kuroo picked Yuuji right away for their current project between the music performance and production students. He’s been trying to pick mates for him too, but Yuuji stopped being so into it a handful of months back.

“I’m gonna go into your track,” he says, clicking into Kuroo’s raw signals to pull up the waveforms, “and align the phasing, get your frequencies matched together. Scoop the mids, finish EQ, and I’ll see how you like it before I do anything else. Only thing I won’t do for you is quantize you into the pocket.” He grins over at Kuroo. “If you can’t line up with the time after eight years on that thing, that’s a you problem.”

Kuroo flashes a canine. “I can lock in in my sleep.”

“I’m sure Shou would beg to differ on stage.”

“That guy’s been drumming for two years. He’s a _pianist._ ”

“Fingers to rival yours.”

“We’ll have Kenma and Mika be the judges of that.”

“Kenma, huh?”

“None that you know of.” He hooks his bass over one shoulder. “Make me sound good.”

Yuuji snorts again. “You’ll need it. Look at all this buzzing.” He points to abnormalities in the signal that have nothing to do with Kuroo’s playing. “Marks off, for sure.”

Kuroo grins back, nudging his shoulder with a fist. “Get better at lead, then we’ll talk.”

Yuuji glances at his guitar in the corner of the studio. He brought it to go into the booth himself after all his slots were done. There’s a song that’s been stuck in his head for a while, something he can’t seem to get down on paper. He can’t even hear any of the notes. All he knows is that it’s there and trapped inside. It’s supposed to come out when he has his guitar in his hands, ready to fulfill a promise.

But maybe not tonight. He’s afraid that if he picks it up, plugs into the amps, plays something out and comes to look at his own feed, the waves will be crashing all over the place against the rocky edges of the screen and each other. Or worse—the amps will sit there waiting, but nothing will come out of his hands at all, and the screen will be empty.

It’s late anyway. He’s sat through six hours of French horn and oboe and opera and acoustic: a full set of tones and frequencies he’s required to work with for class. Sound checking and moving mics and pushing up faders and dealing with technical difficulties. One more student once Kuroo leaves and he’s done for the night. He’ll pack up his guitar and put the song out of his head and go home like always.

“Thanks for picking the second to last slot, man,” he calls to Kuroo. “I’ll do my best on yours, all right?”

Kuroo waves a hand over his other shoulder. “I know you’ll get it. Tell your last student I said sorry for the mess.”

Yuuji barely gets out a _Huh?_ before Kuroo leaves the studio and the door shuts. He glances into the booth to see cables wound through each other all over the ground, a music stand still in the middle of the room, the low mic perched in front of the amp Kuroo sat on, just waiting to be kicked down by accident by whatever ocarina aficionado comes in here next.

Yuuji sighs, rubs his hands over his face. Stands, pulls his headphones off and hooks them on his chair before clicking out of Kuroo’s file and going into the booth. He moves the mic and music stand out of the way before unplugging Kuroo’s cable from the amp and rolling it over his elbow, snaking it through the other cords on the ground that he nudges out of the way with the toe of his shoe. As he’s wrapping the last of the cable, he hears the studio door open again. He awaits Kuroo’s nasally voice telling him he forgot something.

“Hello?”

Definitely not Kuroo. High, soft, cool in timbre with just a little bit of breathy noise; a cold wind over mountains. Clear and well-articulated, but if it mumbled or slurred, weighed down in a fog, it might almost sound like…

His heart threatens to crawl up and out. “Yeah,” he calls back. _There’s no way._ “Come in. I’ll be out in a second. Tidying the booth for you.”

He hears the sound of a bag being set down, soft footsteps on worn floor matting. He turns with the cable clutched in his hand just as the voice peeks its head into the doorway of the booth.

“I can help.”

_You_.

A lump fills Yuuji’s throat. He counts the beats he finds himself staring.

_It’s you. Aoi._

He didn’t even know Aoi was part of the music program. He didn’t know if Aoi ever came back to school after that night. He didn’t know the outcome, if Aoi was okay. Their campus is big; his schedule is strict. He had never seen Aoi before and didn’t see him again. After he left the room, everything went radio silent.

_Do you…recognize me?_

“Hey,” he breathes out. “Uh, it’s basically ready. What do you play?”

Aoi— _Do you even remember when you told me your name?_ —smiles at him. “I have a vibraphone just out in the hall. If you wouldn’t mind giving me a hand.”

“Yeah, of course.” He puts the cable on top of the amp and follows Aoi’s smile out of the booth. It has a different tone to it when he’s lucid—brighter, blindingly so—but it was always just as big.

“Thank you,” Aoi says, glancing over his shoulder at him as he opens the door.

“No problem.” Yuuji props the door with his foot, watching Aoi round the vibraphone, keys still covered by a protective cloth. He takes the other side and helps Aoi maneuver it through the doorway. “Did you wheel this thing over here yourself?”

“Mostly,” Aoi admits. “Someone with a bass guitar helped me get it through the door at the end of the hall.”

They may rag on each other—all of them in the band do, except maybe Bo—but Kuroo has always been a really compassionate guy. Yuuji sends him a quick mental thank you.

“That’s good.”

They bring it through and the door swings shut behind Aoi. As they make their way into the booth, Aoi says, “That’s a really beautiful guitar.”

Yuuji glances at it again. A Les Paul in a color called honeyburst, rich golden yellow fading to amber at the edges. It was his dream guitar, saved up for and bought from a local shop. Every time he looks at it now, he remembers what he swore he would do and never got the chance to.

He glances up at Aoi and wonders if he remembers, too.

Aoi only smiles at him again. He picks up his bag on the way into the booth.

The vibraphone makes it in, and Yuuji is glad that he cleaned Kuroo’s mess or else they’d have trouble rolling it at all. They angle it to face the window to the soundboard and Aoi locks it into place.

“Do you remember…” Aoi says, and all at once Yuuji is about to say that he remembers it all, of course he does, and spill out everything, ask the things Aoi couldn’t answer before, apologize for breaking the promise he made, for ever going back home. “If I’m supposed to use more than one microphone?” Aoi ends up asking.

Yuuji forces back a shaky sigh. “We’ll use two. Don’t worry—” ( _I’ve got you. You’re safe with me_.) “I have everything we’ll need.”

Aoi’s eyes crinkle just the smallest bit at the corners when he smiles. Medium brown, little flecks of green. Completely unclouded. “Okay.”

“Yeah.” Yuuji looks around. “Right. We’ll get you an overhead condenser mic for each half. Combine the signals post run.” While Aoi removes the cover from the vibraphone, Yuuji situates two microphones above the lower and upper sides. “Is your piece really strike-heavy? How high do you want these?”

Aoi pulls four blue-headed mallets from the bag attached to the instrument. “It’s a softer piece,” he says in a melodic voice that sounds like what Yuuji already imagines he’ll hear from his song. “No worries.”

Yuuji swallows. “Got it.” He raises the mic heads just enough that Aoi’s mallets won’t hit them. “So, uh—I’ll go out and get the feeds pulled up for these. You can set up what you need.”

Aoi gives him a nod, and he goes back out to the soundboard, closing the door to the booth behind him. He hooks his headphones around his neck again and sits at the mixer, clicks into the computer and connects the feed for Aoi’s microphones, pulling up his signals on dual screens.

For a moment, he glances up into the booth. Aoi pulls pristine sheet music from his bag and places it on the stand. For the project, every performance student had to write their own piece and bring it to a production student for recording and mixing. Some have been hits and some have been misses in Yuuji’s book—Kuroo’s piece was his favorite so far, though he can’t deny a bias. But Aoi looks comfortable behind his instrument, the foundation for a bright musical wall between him and anyone else that might try to get to him. Soft vibes already seem to fit Aoi better than anything. At the same time his greatest line of defense and his biggest weakness.

( _Well, music is like that._ He was heavy. Heavier than he should have been. _Sometimes you write a song to bring something closer…and sometimes you do it to push it away._ )

Yuuji draws in a breath and lets it back out. He takes the settings on the mixer back to baseline, then presses the button to speak into the booth. “Are you all set?”

“I think so,” Aoi replies, looking through the glass at him. He has his mallets crossed under his palms, two in each hand, and his foot ready on the pedal.

“Give me a note or two on each end.”

Aoi plays the lowest and highest B-flats, letting them ring. Yuuji watches the signals and adjusts the soundboard accordingly—nearly opposite from the kind of settings Kuroo needed. “All right,” he says.

Aoi blinks at him. “Good to go?”

Yuuji nods. “Let’s take it from the beginning.” He releases the button.

Inside the booth, Aoi lifts his mallets and takes a breath.

Yuuji angles back toward Daishou at the drumkit while Kuroo heads to the edge of the stage and Bokuto holds a note, kneeling in tight jeans front and center with his guitar slung off to his side, gripping his mic in both hands. Yuuji points his pick at their drummer and sends a grin. “Let’s play it out!” Daishou fills them into a final roll as Bokuto stands, strumming out their last chord, and Yuuji improvises any cool descending lick.

While Daishou silences his cymbals and Kuroo thanks the clapping crowd, Yuuji scans it, searching for that tuft of pink. They were in the middle of one of Kuroo’s dark ballads when Yuuji noticed it. Even at full capacity in this venue, individual faces aren’t difficult to pick out. The lights above the stage, searing down onto them and making sweat bead up on his brow, glinted into a pair of huge eyes.

_New here?_ he thought as he played, and for some reason he hoped that Kuroo wouldn’t make his special brand of eye contact with that face in particular.

But now, looking out at everyone, he doesn’t see the guy anymore. Did he leave long ago? If he moves fast enough, could he catch up?

He gathers up his spare picks, unplugs, and heads for the side of the stage, glad that Bokuto and Kuroo are distracted with the crowd.

“What’s up?” Daishou calls to him.

He pivots to take the next few steps backwards, pulling his guitar strap over his head. “Gotta check something out.”

Daishou makes some confused noise after him, but Yuuji turns back to hop down the stairs.

In five minutes he has his guitar in its case and the case on his back, headed out toward the live house entrance. He stops in front of the bar, leaning up against it on his forearms. “Quick question.”

Mika turns around with two cold bottles in one hand, clinking together. When they got their first gig here, Daishou called first shot on the cute bartender before Yuuji or Kuroo could even breathe in her direction. In the end, they were romantically invisible to her compared to their drummer, anyway. “Hit me,” she says.

“Did you see this kid with light brown hair? Kind of pink-tinted under the lights?” He motions at his head.

Mika pops the caps off the two beers without looking, well-practiced. “I might have given him a Sprite?” She hands the bottles over to waiting patrons next to Yuuji with a smile. “Maybe not though. Why? Have a crush?” Her lips pull into a sideways grin that Daishou always says reminds him way too much of Kuroo.

_Curiosity._ “See where he went?” Yuuji evades.

She shakes her head. “Sorry. He didn’t seem like the here-to-get-wasted type, so I didn’t keep track of him.”

“No name, I assume,” he sighs.

“None.”

“Get away from her, you creep,” Daishou says, coming up behind him.

Yuuji pats his shoulder. “I’m headed out.”

“Already?” He touches Mika’s hand briefly over the bar.

Yuuji tilts his head toward the stage. “Akaashi came tonight, and I’m sure Kuroo’s already plucked some art history major.”

Daishou grimaces. “She said she’s in classics.”

“Close enough.”

“Want anything before you go?” Mika offers.

“I’m good.” He salutes to both of them. “See you tomorrow, Shou. Later, Mika.”

“Get home safe,” Mika teases.

“Hey, don’t tell Kuroo I asked about anyone, all right?” He edges toward the door. “He’ll be on my back about it.”

Daishou gives a return salute—the only one Yuuji can trust with a secret, even one this insignificant.

Yuuji gives them a last wave and steps out into the evening. It’s a cool midnight, just enough for short sleeves, pleasant after being stuffed into the house for almost two hours. He puts his hands in his pockets and starts his way through empty campus outskirts back toward his apartment.

He ought to have said hi to Akaashi, stuck around a little longer, figured out what classics actually means, but by the time he was at the bar he was already too close to the door anyway. Kuroo would have been pointing out other people for him as it was. He might have even gone for one if he had the time for something long-haul in the middle of the term. Then again, he asked about pink hair as if it meant something.

He weaves past the business school, law buildings, offices. Maybe he’ll play a little more when he gets home, plug into his headphones and get out some staff paper. They could use a new track or two, and Daishou is going to be busy with Mika tonight and is likely to write nothing. Another banger maybe, something that will go well with Bo’s voice. Or a ballad, a slow light one, like the kind Daishou sings when—

He hears it before he sees anything: a soft sound, muffled; a small animal caught in a trap. A weak, pained moan.

His pulse chills and slows down. All at once, his guitar feels heavy on his back, weighting him where he stands. But he gets his feet to move, a step forward and another, until he clears the side wall of some classroom and looks down through the space between one building and the next.

The same hair faces the wall, browner and flat when it’s being held out of the light by a hand gripped through it. His elbows are against the stone, his pants down around his calves. The person behind him must be at least ten centimeters taller than even Yuuji himself.

_Hey, Mika. When you hand out sodas from the bar, do you pour them into a cup first?_

From this far away, Yuuji can’t see for sure if those big eyes are open anymore, but he doesn’t need to see to know. The high, gentle voice beneath them groans again, one word in perfect muddy clarity: “ _Don’t._ ”

“Hey.”

The tall one stops moving. He’s big—big enough that Yuuji would lose in a fight, and then there would be two people in trouble. He would use his guitar as a weapon, break three hundred thousand yen into pieces if it meant helping, but it’s in the case on his back, and there isn’t enough time for that.

And it doesn’t matter anyway. He’s glued to the ground, standing there like an imbecile and all he can shout is _Hey_.

And by the time he’s done thinking too slowly, the assaulter is already backing away, keeping his face hidden, closing his pants up in the front and running off through the alley the other way.

“Hey!” he shouts again, but it lands on nothing.

He looks back to the other boy—the one from the crowd, a first-timer at their shows for sure—beginning to slide down from the wall, legs going limp underneath him.

It’s enough to get Yuuji’s body to work again. He rushes over, dropping to his knees and catching him under his shoulders just before he makes it to the ground and hits his head on the concrete. “Shit,” Yuuji breathes. “Hey. Are you all right?”

_Of course not, you idiot. You know the word for this._

“Hey,” he says again dumbly. His voice isn’t steady. “What’s your name. Can you tell me your name?”

“It hurts…”

It comes out strained, so gentle that it crushes Yuuji’s ribs. The boy is wobbly in his arms, difficult to hold from this position. He hauls him up a little, trying not to shake him around, pulling him away from the wall and into dim light from a nearby lamp. The hard ground digs into Yuuji’s knees, but it can’t come close to what the person in his arms must be feeling.

“It hurts,” that voice says again.

“I know,” Yuuji whispers, staring at the blood he can now see streaked dark between his legs.

_How much did he give you? How long before I got here?_ He should have not bothered to stop at the bar. He should have just left.

“Please tell me your name,” he says firmly, but his voice lacks any surety at all.

The boy groans, churning briefly in his grip. “Aoi…”

_Aoi._

Yuuji puts his hand on Aoi’s cheek, tilting his face toward him. “Family name? Aoi. Listen.” He pats his cheek once before holding it again. “Aoi? Please open your eyes.”

Slowly, Aoi does. They’re massive even half-open, watery and bright, somehow catching the full vibrance of the street lamp. Astonishingly, a smile spreads over his face. “Is that a guitar?”

Yuuji’s breath catches in his throat. He swallows it down hard. “Yes. It’s my guitar.”

“I watched you on the stage,” Aoi says, slurring through his smile, and Yuuji is so flustered by everything at once that he isn’t sure how to answer. But he doesn’t have to. Aoi shifts and his face twists up again, a whimper coming out of him, and Yuuji snaps into real time.

“Okay,” he says, to himself or no one, forcing his mind back into focus. “All right. I’m going to get your jeans back on.”

“What happened?”

“I…” _Tell him something. Tell him the truth, or lie wholeheartedly. Anything._ “I don’t know,” he says pathetically. “But I’m going to take you to the infirmary, okay? Can I help you there?”

All Aoi says is an uneven, “Mmm…”

“Okay. Yeah.” He lays Aoi down and moves to reach for his pants, but his guitar case on his back is in the way of everything, knocking against his elbows and the back of his head. It shoots a flare of anger through him, frustration at it and at himself and at the coward who ran away. “Aoi. Look at me.”

Thankfully, Aoi does.

“I’m going to put this thing down somewhere. I’ll be right back.”

He waits for fear, a nervous frown, a soft, _Don’t go_. But Aoi just smiles again and says, “Mm. All right.”

“Can you get your pants up on your own?”

“Hmm?” He’s still just smiling, lying there.

No, then. It was stupid to ask.

He shoves his guitar off of his back and lays it away to the side. When his hands brush against Aoi’s legs, they feel warm, too warm for the cool night and his nudity. Yuuji swallows again and takes the waistbands of his underwear and jeans, tugging them up, wary of touching too much of Aoi’s body and then realizing it doesn’t matter. For the other guy, that was the whole point.

“I’m going to lift your hips,” he says, too quietly. He doesn’t even know if Aoi hears him. He lifts Aoi under his lower back, wiggling his clothes up and staining them with blood, situating him to cover him fully, zipping the jeans closed. “Okay. I’m sorry I—touched…” He shakes it away. “Ten seconds. I’ll be right back.”

He stands, forcing himself not to look too long at Aoi’s weak body lying there on the ground, his hair piecey and slanted over his forehead, tangled by a stranger’s rough hand. He gets his guitar from the ground and runs to the front of the building.

Though classrooms and offices are locked by now, the main door is still open. He shoves inside and puts his guitar down in a corner by the stairwell door. The infirmary isn’t too far—close enough that walking would be faster than waiting. He’ll carry Aoi if he has to, any way he can. The guitar can stay here and he can come back. And if it’s gone by then, then at least Aoi won’t be.

He heads back out. Aoi still lies there, motionless.

Dread crackles up his spine that Aoi might have lost consciousness. He drops back to his knees by Aoi’s side. “Aoi?”

Aoi’s breathing is slow, nothing like it should be for someone in this situation. Nothing like Yuuji’s. His eyes have slipped closed again.

Yuuji grabs his face with both hands this time. “Wake up, okay? Look at me. Come on, look at me.”

When Aoi’s eyes open again, his pupils are dilated wide, fully dark and swirling with fear. “What did I do?”

The anger resurfaces, burning in Yuuji’s chest and out to his palms holding Aoi’s too-warm face. “Nothing. You didn’t do anything.”

“Why does it…hurt so much…” One disoriented hand comes up slowly to grasp Yuuji’s wrist. “Am I going to…” His eyes flick around listlessly, lagging, at nothing.

“ _Look at me_ ,” Yuuji insists. He waits for Aoi’s gaze to drift back into his. “He’s gone. I’m taking you to the doctor.”

The hand lifts up and comes close to Yuuji’s face. He blinks as Aoi’s fingertips brush delicately against the stray piece of hair at his forehead that never stays back when he gels up his bangs. “Your guitar is this color,” Aoi says. His hand falls limply back down onto Yuuji’s arm.

Yuuji stares into his eyes, keeping his hands soft on his cheeks. “Don’t worry. I’ve got you,” he promises. “You’re safe with me.”

For a moment, he thinks Aoi’s hand squeezes, or else his mind is playing tricks on him.

He nods once, determined. “Now we’re going to stand up together. Think you can do that?”

Aoi blinks once, then his head moves in Yuuji’s hands in something like a nod.

“Good. Follow my lead.”

He helps Aoi to sitting, takes one arm and tells him to wrap the other over his shoulders. Braces one foot on the ground and stands, and Aoi is heavy—heavier than he should be, with hardly enough strength to hold himself up. But he’s steady enough on his feet, at least enough to not go falling again. Yuuji gets a tight grip on his arm and his waist.

“There. Nice to be up off the ground, huh?” He smiles sideways at Aoi, but Aoi’s body goes sideways too. “Whoa, hey.” He catches him again. “Dizzy?”

“My…chest.”

Yuuji immediately turns to look for some wound he missed, blood he couldn’t see in the dark. “What? What’s wrong?”

Aoi stumbles and draws in a shallow, labored breath. “I have…inhaler…”

For the second time, Yuuji’s blood runs cold. “Your what? Inhaler?” He looks down at Aoi’s jeans and knows the answer to the question he asks anyway. “Is it in your pocket?” Aoi has no bag with him.

Aoi tries breathing again, but it sounds terrible, too slow and ragged, like it gets stuck in the middle of his throat and whirls around there instead of going any further down. “Home. It hurts.”

_Hey, Shou. If you used too much sedative on an animal before surgery, could it make them stop breathing? What if that animal had an asthma attack, too?_

“Aoi,” Yuuji says as evenly as he can. “I need you to get on my back.”

“I’m sleepy.”

“ _No_.” He says it louder than he meant to, more forcefully than he wanted. Aoi looks at him with the same fear, tries for another breath. Yuuji gently pulls his waist, already directing Aoi behind him. “You have to stay awake, all right? Climb up on my back and wrap your arms and legs around me. Here.”

He moves in front of Aoi, kneels again, and looks over his shoulder at him. Thankfully, Aoi follows, going to his back and draping himself over, clutching his arms around his neck until Yuuji tucks his hands under his thighs and manages to stand again. Aoi whimpers into his ear and it slices down into his heart.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I know it hurts.” He starts walking, keeping his eyes forward for the infirmary doors somewhere in the distance. “You’ll stay awake, won’t you?”

Aoi hums. Yuuji feels his hair tickling against his neck, just under his ear. He can hear Aoi’s feeble breaths.

Maybe if he keeps talking, he can keep Aoi here. At least they’re finally moving. He’s sure the other guy is long gone.

“So,” he says as they turn to pass another building. “You came to our show. You like music?”

“Mm. I like—” He takes another purposeful gasp. “Music.”

Even with all of this, if Yuuji ignores the slight tang of blood, Aoi close to him still smells clean, soda-sweet. His murmured voice is equally so, breathy and lightweight despite the trouble in his lungs. At another time, he would make a lovely singer.

“That’s good,” Yuuji says. “Do you have a favorite song?”

“Do wh—” A breath. “What?”

_No questions. Don’t make him speak. Just say anything_.

“Never mind. I’m the lead guitarist,” he says, putting one foot in front of the other as steadily as he can. “In our band. We play alternative rock. Bokuto is our lead singer, but we all sing depending on the song. Daishou and I write most of the music. Kuroo is my best friend. I think he’s the best singer of all of us, but we all think it’s someone different.” He hikes Aoi up a little more and hugs his legs a little tighter. “When Daishou sings, I play the drums and—” He chuckles. “Well, he’s kind of a rich kid, so he has a lot of instruments. So he plays his own guitar. It’s blue. It’s, um, a Telecaster. Mine is a Gibson.” He glances at dark windows as they pass by. “I saved up for a really long time in high school to get it. My mom said it would be ridiculous to spend that much on one thing, that I should put that money toward school or save it for something important in the future. But that guitar is my life. I’ve stayed up full nights because of it, cancelled plans, forgotten meals. Took it on trips. Been paranoid if I left it in my apartment unattended. Cried over it and onto it. Hated it and loved it. And all of it happily. Everything I’ve had so far has gone into that one…thing.” Unconsciously, he squeezes his hands gently into Aoi’s legs. “I guess I thought that guitar was worth more than anything to me. But I guess I never considered any _one_.”

He pauses. The campus is quiet around them, and he realizes it’s probably tomorrow.

“Still awake?” he whispers. _Still breathing?_

Aoi’s hair tickles his skin again. His cheek rubs against Yuuji’s shoulder, and Yuuji feels a warm, creaky breath against his neck. “Mm.”

“Good. No dreaming yet.”

He moves a little faster, envisioning the pink dot of Aoi’s head moving gradually on an overhead map. A couple more buildings and they’ll be there. Each step one fewer than before.

“The last song I wrote,” he says, “was a story song. About finding someone again after a long time, getting a long-awaited look at their face, remembering things that happened before. Being breathless. Feeling everything welling up in your chest.” He listens to another frail inhale. “But even I’m not sure how it ends.”

“You don’t know?” Aoi asks, startling him.

He smiles a little. “Well, music is like that. Sometimes you write a song to bring something closer…” Aoi’s arms shift on his shoulders, tightening just enough. “And sometimes you do it to push it away.”

“To keep going.”

Yuuji nods. “Maybe.”

Aoi says, “Can you…play something for me?”

He must be disoriented enough to have forgotten that Yuuji left his guitar behind. Or maybe he wasn’t aware enough to notice at all. “I’m getting you to the doctor.”

Aoi’s lungs sound fatigued. His entire body must ache awfully. “Please?” he breathes. “In case something happens?”

But Yuuji just shakes his head, keeping his eyes on the sidewalk in front of him as the lights of the infirmary start to come into view. “Not yet,” he says. He squeezes one more time, firmly. “I’ll play for you when this is all over. I swear it.”

It’s a ternary piece, broken into three parts. Through the speakers leading to where Yuuji sits at the soundboard, Aoi plays a slow introduction on his vibraphone, unfinished melodies and beautiful voicing, gentle sweeps of his wrists over the keys and chords Yuuji isn’t sure he even knows how to play on the guitar sitting in the corner. And then, in a matter of moments, it builds up louder and quicker, taller and bigger—notes flurrying up the octaves until Aoi stops abruptly with his mallets high, close to the microphones but never touching, the pedal dampening all sound. His eyes close gently and his body sways down, slowly slumping from the wall onto the concrete, into the second section of the piece when one unexpected note catches him just before he lands. It’s uneasy, pure notes filtering past muddy minor and suspended chords, a flick of his right hand higher to play a bell tone like something coming through a hazy consciousness. He moves stepwise, steadily, up again until he reaches the top, bright lights of the highest pitches, and lets one chord ring as the doors open and someone in uniform comes to meet them.

_Did you call campus police?_

_I—I was just helping him._ He looked past her. Aoi’s eyes were closed as he lay on a bed.

_What did the man look like?_

_He was bigger. Taller than both of us._

_Did you see his face?_

_I don’t know. He looked like anyone. He had no face. I don’t know._ A pen light in Aoi’s eyes. Someone calling for albuterol. _I’m sorry. I don’t know anything._

_Okay. What’s your name?_

_Terushima Yuuji._

_And his?_

_Aoi. That’s all I know._

_You don’t know him?_

_No. I just saw him and…_

_All right, Terushima-san. We’ll find him, don’t worry. When he comes to, everything will be fine. You’re welcome to go home._

_Oh. Should I?_ They were starting to undo Aoi’s jeans before someone reached to close a curtain.

_It would be best to let us do what he needs in private._

_Oh._

_You get home safe._

He did. _So_ unfairly, he walked home in the dark alone and nobody bothered him at all. When he went back to the classroom building, his guitar was right where he left it, and then that was it. He was called and spoke to the police the next day and had nothing to give them aside from an approximate height, and they wouldn’t divulge any information about Aoi, including his full name. They avoided saying his name at all.

He didn’t talk to anyone about it—not even Kuroo or Daishou or his mom. It never felt like his story to tell.

He should have gone back. He should have waited in the hall, as long as it took. But he just went home.

Nearing the end of his song, Aoi moves into the introduction once again, a reprise of the same notes. But when it’s time for the run up, the frantic moment before the fall, it doesn’t come. He plays a slow arpeggio, ascending one final repeated major chord, and Yuuji begs for the last note—that perfect eight that will tell him things are done now. After all this time, it’s finally, totally gone. They can keep going.

But Aoi doesn’t resolve it. His mallets lift, and Yuuji waits for even one to come back down, play the note his ears want to hear, but it doesn’t. They stay there, stuck in the air, until the ringing stops.

_Do you remember me? Do you remember anything at all?_

Aoi looks through the window at him. “Did it come out well? Do you think we’ll need a second take?”

Yuuji flinches in his chair. “Uh, no, if you—” He isn’t pressing the button. He reaches over and lets Aoi hear him. “If you’re fine with the run…” He glances at beautiful waveforms on the monitors. “Then the sound is all good.”

Aoi smiles big. “Really? It was a good take. I don’t know if I’ve played it better before.” He giggles as he tucks his mallets back into the bag.

Yuuji swallows hard. “It was really good, A—”

They haven’t said any names yet. For all Aoi might know, they’ve never met before tonight.

“Thank you.” He flashes another smile and starts to tug the cover back onto the keys. “I’m sorry it’s so late, by the way. I somehow managed to get the last spot available when I signed up.” He looks over into Yuuji’s eyes as he gathers his sheet music. “I’m really grateful for your help.”

“No, of course,” Yuuji says. “That’s…what I’m here for.”

Aoi zips his backpack, hooks it over one shoulder and takes the corners of the vibraphone again, unlocking the wheels. “If you wouldn’t mind maybe helping me again?”

Yuuji stands too quickly, rolling his chair back and tugging on his headphone cord. He takes them away from his neck, disconnects the microphones. “Yeah. No problem.”

As he helps Aoi wheel the vibraphone back out of the booth, he tries to think of what to say, but like the song trapped in his head since that night he didn’t go back, since he picked up his guitar and never played it for Aoi like he promised, nothing comes out. The urge to stare at Aoi’s face is overwhelmed by the fear that if he looks, he’ll see no recognition there.

“So, it’ll be ready by next Thursday, right?” Aoi asks. They open the studio door leading out toward the hallway.

“Yes.” He nods once. “The raw audio and the edited one—I’ll have them both sent to your professor by then. I think she’ll get them to you guys.”

“Do you know what you’ll do with it yet?” They angle the vibraphone into the hall and Aoi locks the wheels.

Yuuji looks down at them, then up at him. The clarity in his eyes is staggering. Vivid lights compared to back then. “Well. If you want, you can come look.”

Another grin. “Really?”

Yuuji can’t help a bit of a smile in return. “Yeah. Come over to the board.” So Aoi comes back through the doorway, and it shuts behind him as they go to the monitors. He stands next to Yuuji, placing his bag at his feet, resting the tips of his fingers on the mixer as he leans to look closer. Yuuji glances sideways at his hand, but says nothing about it. “So. These are your two microphones—lower and upper. Now I’m gonna combine the signals.” He clicks through the program until the two sets of waveforms stack together on one screen. He hums low.

“Is something wrong with it?” Aoi asks nervously.

Yuuji shakes his head. “Not at all. This is actually something I’ll be doing for the last student who was here, too. He had two channels to combine—amp and DI.” He waves his hand. “It doesn’t matter. Point is, what I’ll do is align the phasing for both signals. Meaning I’ll match up the waves.” He zooms in a little on a segment of Aoi’s waveform. “There are pieces here, and here…” He points, glancing again at Aoi next to him. Aoi has his eyes glued to the screen. “Where you have some inexact overlap that makes these wobbles in your curve. It’s called phase interference. Two signals sometimes…have trouble matching up. They just need a little nudge, that’s all.”

“Just something to bring two frequencies together into one?” Aoi asks quietly. He doesn’t look over.

Yuuji nods. “Right.”

Aoi nods too. “That will sound nice, I think. After all.”

All at once, the words come crawling up Yuuji’s throat, pushing hard to get out. It’s been months—too much time waited, too many beats counted, now that he’s finally seen him again. If this ends without him ever asking, he will have failed just as much as he did that night when he took his guitar home.

He takes his hand away from the mouse, then takes a breath. “Listen, uh. This might sound weird if I’m wrong, but—” He clears his throat. “Do you…remember me?”

Aoi’s hand slips away from the mixer, and he turns to look directly into Yuuji’s eyes. “Of course I remember you.”

Yuuji’s heart thumps against his ribs. “Oh.”

“I see you around campus,” Aoi says. “Once in a while.”

He blinks. “You do?”

“Sure. You’re recognizable, a top student, and the lead guitarist in your band.” He smiles a little, small dimples at the corners of his mouth that Yuuji couldn’t see in the dark or through the booth. “Terushima Yuuji. I’d know that hair anywhere.”

His name in Aoi’s voice makes his spine tingle.

But…is that it, then? Aoi just happens to know who he is, remembers him from something else entirely? Did he even tell Aoi his name that night? He racks his brain, trying to remember smaller details, moments that passed too quickly.

But then Aoi says very quietly, “When I woke up, things were really hazy. It wasn’t all out of my system yet.”

Yuuji’s breath catches in his throat, the same way it did when Aoi was just lucid enough to recognize a guitar on his back.

“But my asthma attack was gone, and I could move and talk like I wanted to. Breathe like I needed. When I asked for you, they only told me your name.”

_I should have come back for you_ , Yuuji wants to say. _I should have brought my guitar and played you a song then. One that meant something, or just one that you would like. You would have woken up and they would have come to get me where I was sleeping in the hall and you could have told me your last name. Told me that you were okay. I didn’t know. I never—_

“I’ve been to counseling,” Aoi says, nodding to him. “And I don’t get anxiety over it anymore. I know it was,” he moves a hand, “nothing that had a cause. That it wasn’t directed. I’ve stopped worrying that he’ll find me again.”

“They didn’t get him?” Yuuji asks.

Aoi shakes his head calmly. “Nobody was ever punished.”

The anger from that night surges back into him, and he finds now that most of it is at himself. “I’m sorry I didn’t stop him, or do more. I should have looked closer at his face, or run after him, or—”

“I’m glad you didn’t. You caught me instead.”

The peace in Aoi’s voice soothes him back down. A gentle cheek brushing against his shoulder; a dust of soft breath against his skin. He only stares into Aoi’s eyes.

“I remember that part,” Aoi says. “I remember realizing that I was falling, and that I didn’t hit the ground.”

Yuuji’s lips part, but still nothing comes out.

“I can’t remember much leading up to what happened, but I know that I went to your show. I must have been careless with my drink.”

“That’s not your fault—”

“And that piece of your hair under the lights.” He laughs suddenly, easily. “It’s funny. I can remember tiny details like that, but the bigger picture is gone. Most of what I remember is about you.”

Yuuji’s hands tremble at his sides. “I don’t…know what to say.”

“I’m really okay,” Aoi says, looking intently into his eyes, as though trying to convince him. “You saved my life. I can breathe again.”

Some nights, Yuuji can still hear the labored sound of Aoi’s lungs. His lack of inhaler on top of his suppressed respiratory system from the drug could have actually done something terrible. His body could have just forgotten how to breathe altogether. If he’d been left there after that guy had his way…

He tries to speak. “I…”

“It’s over. All in the past now.”

Yuuji swallows again. “You don’t…forgive it. Him. Do you?”

Aoi smiles and shrugs, looking off to the side. “I probably never will. Forgiveness is just as useless as a grudge. Neither one undoes what happened.” His gaze comes back to Yuuji’s face. “But what I can continue to feel is my gratitude. I never got to thank you. I hadn’t worked up the courage to talk to you again because, um.” His eyes flick downward briefly. “I’ve been embarrassed.”

Yuuji puts his hands up halfway. “No, please—don’t be. I…it’s nothing. I mean—”

“That’s why, when I saw your name, I picked you for this project,” Aoi says, quicker than usual, leaning forward a little. The lightest pink flush colors his cheeks and he pauses, leans back, and says, “I thought…maybe it would be a good way to run into you again. Under better circumstances.”

Yuuji feels his own blush creep up to his ears. So then, on the sign-up sheet, Aoi saw his name among nearly ten others and chose him? Even if it wasn’t the perfect day for him, and even when the only spot left was during the evening?

His hand comes up to touch his hair for no reason. “Yeah. Um—I’m glad we did. Run into each other again, I mean.”

Aoi nods, chewing on the side of his lip. “Me too. And it’s Himekawa, by the way. Himekawa Aoi.”

It flows musically into Yuuji’s brain and downward.

What can he say? What is he _allowed_ to say? This won’t be it…will it?

“It’s nice to, um,” he shakes his head at himself, “meet you. Do you maybe need help taking it back?” He points to the studio door, at the vibraphone behind it. _Anything for more time with you_.

But Aoi says, “No, that’s all right. Thank you, though.”

Yuuji lowers his hand and his gaze. “Yeah. No, I’m sure you can handle it yourself.” His chest feels heavy, something sinking down and—

“But I’d like to ask a different favor.”

He looks up at Aoi again. “Of course.”

Aoi blinks, eyes shining under soft studio lights. “I’m sorry if this is too forward, but if you’re interested, maybe you’d want to get dinner with me some time?”

_Interested?_ It bubbles around inside of him, fizzy and anxious and exciting. _I’ve been interested in you since I saw you in the crowd. And now…_

If anything else ever comes up—something big like last time that he hopes never does, or something small that just needs kind words or a squeeze of his hand—he wants to be there for it. There right away, so that maybe this time, he can protect Aoi before it ever happens.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, I’m very interested.”

That smile spreads out over Aoi’s face again, wide and clear. “I have a performance in three days in the concert hall. It’s open admission, and it’ll be over at eight. After that, I’ll be free.”

_There’s no way._ _No way this is happening._ “I’ll be there,” he promises, and now he’s the breathless one.

Aoi just grins. “Good. I’m really happy.”

And something pricks at the back of Yuuji’s mind, or maybe a lot closer than he admits. Something that’s been stuck there for months, trying to get out. He says, “I think I owe you something. Don’t I.” He glances at his guitar in the corner again.

But Aoi only looks at him. “I think there’s no debt between us. If anything, I owe you.”

“No, you don’t—”

“But I would love to hear it. If you want to. I’ve…” He blushes a little bit more. “Been excited ever since. Among all the other small details, your promise stands out to me the most.”

He has to. Finally, no matter what, he has to do it. “Three days, then,” Yuuji says softly. “That’s more than enough time.”

Aoi smiles one more time. He reaches down to get his bag. “Okay. Good night then?” He starts to walk out, still looking at Yuuji there.

“Good night, Aoi. Get home s—”

He stops, wondering if it’s something he shouldn’t say. If he should never say it again, if it’s foolish to wish something like that.

But Aoi just faces him again and says, “I will. I swear it.”

Yuuji nods to him, and Aoi turns to leave the studio.

When the door closes and Yuuji can’t hear the sound of the vibraphone wheels any longer, his eyes glance immediately to his guitar. He turns back to the monitors and saves Aoi’s files, then pulls up a new one, connecting the feed to the amplifier Kuroo was using before, arranging the mixer to settings he knows by heart but has been too afraid to use. He checks everything one more time to be sure that it’s ready, that the blank screen is waiting for him to fulfill a promise he made in the dark months ago. He goes to his guitar, and he doesn’t hesitate as he carries it with him into the booth, shutting the door behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is in part from the Arctic Monkeys' "The Ultracheese":  
> What a death I died writing that song / Start to finish with you looking on
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! Thank you so much for reading <3


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